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Nomar’s Exit Stirs Old Emotions in Boston

Nomar Garciaparra’s best seasons were spent scorching the baseball all over Fenway Park and earning five All-Star game appearances for the Red Sox. But when he had a chance to extend his Boston career in 2004, he instead rejected a four-year, $60 million deal that led to his exit at the trade deadline. The Red Sox promptly followed his exile by ending The Curse. In stops with the Cubs, Dodgers and Athletics, Garciaparra never was the same hitter, so it was fitting that the shortstop signed a one-day contract Wednesday with Boston so he could retire with the Red Sox.

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Is there a single word that captures a New England sports fan better than ‘Nomah’?

Although Garciaparra’s departure from the Red Sox was acrimonious, the Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan prefers to remember Garciaparra’s on-field prowess. “Never saw anybody hit the ball that hard, that often. Nev-ah,” Ryan writes. “Talkin’ ’bout the young Nomar Garciaparra, the 1997-98-99-2000-01-02 Nomah of legend. That guy coulda/shoulda been convicted of cowhide abuse.”

That’s all well and good, but Ryan’s colleague Dan Shaughnessy doesn’t buy Garciaparra’s sudden warm and fuzzy feelings for Boston after his not-so-graceful exit. “Nomar hated Boston and the Red Sox in 2004, and the Sox knew they had to get rid of him if they had a chance to win a World Series,” Shaughnessy writes. “It was nasty and personal and it was obvious to everyone who was around the team in that iconic season.”

Yahoo’s Steve Henson remembers a player who, despite fading skills, still cherished going to the ballpark every day.

* * *

For the second straight game, Wayne Rooney scored twice, this time propelling Manchester United into the Champions League quarterfinals with a 4-0 whitewash of AC Milan (7-2 on aggregate). While the Independent’s James Lawton focuses on Rooney’s contributions, the Times of London’s Matt Dickinson calls Milan’s David Beckham, a former United star, a PR genius for wrapping an anti-Malcolm Glazer scarf around his neck in support of United fans upset with the team’s American owner.

The Telegraph’s Jim White says the best memories came from Rooney, “the man who makes the difference, so loved in the Old Trafford stands that DNA testing could reveal him to be a lovechild of Malcolm Glazer and still the adoration would pour forth.”

* * *

Pity the poor baseball fans in Toronto, Baltimore and Tampa Bay. Boston and New York have owned the AL East for years, with only an occasional hiccup (such as the Rays’ 2008 Al East title). These frustrated fans likely find it difficult to muster any enthusiasm come Opening Day, since they suspect it won’t be long before either Boston or New York has built an insurmountable lead atop the division.

A committee has come up with a radical realignment proposal that commissioner Bud Selig hopes will inject life into staid pennant races like the AL East’s. Factors involved in any switch include whether a team plans to contend, its payroll and its geography. As Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci reports, a team such as Cleveland could benefit handsomely at the gate by transferring into the AL East, even if an Indians playoff berth is a pipedream.

Blogging at Sweet Spot, ESPN’s Rob Neyer calls the idea impractical. “It’s one thing to suggest that the Indians will volunteer to join the American League East and lose more games, and that the Orioles will volunteer to join the American League Central and lose the boffo box office that comes with playing all those games against the Yankees and Red Sox,” Neyer writes. “It’s another thing entirely to suggest that those teams will volunteer to do those things at the same time.”

The Biz of Baseball’s Maury Brown admits that baseball needs better competitiveness, but finds three big flaws in the proposal, including that the change would be a logistical nightmare for the teams it’s supposed to help: those in small- and mid-market cities.

The Mets might like Griffin’s idea, especially after late-season meltdowns cost them the NL East flag in 2007 and ’08. It wouldn’t have helped last season, when even with Opening Day talent galore and a bloated payroll, the Mets finished 70-92. One reason was Jose Reyes’s season-ending injury in May. Reyes is the talk of the Mets’ camp because of what the team calls an overactive thyroid. Or maybe it’s not, according to Reyes. For Sports Illustrated’s Joe Posnanski, things are always interesting around the Mets.

* * *

Tuesday’s Fix led off with the latest accusation of sexual assault against Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. As long as there has been sports, there has been occasional bad athlete behavior, but sports stars face increased scrutiny thanks to tabloid TV shows and Web sites dedicated to the tawdry and the scandalous, the New York Observer’s Felix Gillette reports.

To escape all the attention, athletes might want to trek up to Toronto, a cosmopolitan city that offers a great nightlife and little in the way of paparazzi, the Journal’s Hannah Karp writes.

* * *

There’s always a scapegoat when a team has a bad season. Donald Sterling, owner of the perennially win-challenged Los Angeles Clippers, decided to fire general manager Mike Dunleavy on Tuesday — during a Clippers game, no less. It’s no secret that the Clippers are a joke — they’re 22 games behind the top-seeded Lakers in the West — but Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski writes that Dunleavy’s firing doesn’t change the biggest problem with the Clippers: the owner.

* * *

A 100-12 final score is a rout by any measure. However, that was merely the halftime score for coach Greg Wise’s Yates High School basketball team in Houston. Wise never called off the dogs in Yates’s 170-35 shellacking of Lee High School earlier this season. Wise has a history of piling it on, leaving ESPN’s Rick Reilly miffed. “Wise is to sportsmanship what tsunamis are to beach chairs,” Reilly writes. “So far this season, he’s beaten teams by 135, 115, 99 (twice), 98, 90 and 88 points. Trying to get to 100 points in a crushing of Westbury, his players intentionally fouled to stop the clock. I’d like to clock him.”

* * *

Becoming a world-class athlete takes dedication, stamina and mental toughness. Add in a disability, and the challenge becomes that much harder. For the athletes competing in the Winter Paralympics beginning this weekend in Vancouver, their achievements are just as impressive as those that were on display by able-bodied athletes during the recent Winter Olympics. Unfortunately, most of the world’s media has gone home, meaning most paralympians will get scant coverage — if any — in their hometown papers. Ron Judd had hoped to showcase local athletes for the Seattle Times but won’t be covering the Games at all. Here’s why.

– Tip of the Fix cap to reader Don Hartline, the Journal’s Adam Thompson and fellow Fixer David Roth.

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Comments (4 of 4)

Nomah is definitely heading to the Hall of Fame? Really? Sounds like a stretch to me.

2:24 pm March 11, 2010

NYC wrote:

Just shows how desperate the Sox are! [ sound of carnivorous laughter]

12:48 pm March 11, 2010

Michaelann wrote:

Nomar Garciaparra is the reason I still watch and love the Red Sox today. He was the life of the pre-world series Sox and made some of the best moves at shortstop I have ever seen. A thing to remember is that he was home-grown in our minor leagues, a trophy of Red Sox farming. You don't deny an athlete like that the chance to retire where he was made. After all, he chose to come home and coming brings another Red Sox uniforn into the hall of fame because yes, he is definitely heading there.

11:23 am March 11, 2010

Anonymous wrote:

Milton Bradley is a thug, a punk, and a layabout. He deserves every (non-racial) epithet flung his way.

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